Love and Death are in the Air
by HecateA
Summary: A story of disdainful and dangerous first encounters and underworld goddesses cheering like soccer moms in the background. Oneshot. Written for the Percy Jackson Ship Weeks, Slash Week!


**I'm seriously starting to think I was blind for not having thought of the following pairing before because oh the ~potential~. Swooning step-mothers and mothers, magic and death, Underworld deities, the constant conflicts... I'm drooling. Hope that you enjoy this!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below, and their descriptions (except for Hecate's super awesome outfit)**

**Dedication: All those people who asked that Nico _please please please be in a ship week story _and got me thinking. Also Maddi.**

**Ship week: Slash Week. Next week: Friendship week.**

* * *

**Love and Death are in the Air**

* * *

The weather was pretty good for the underworld today. The lines were moving quickly enough. The judges were all agreeing about sentences to each other, Persephone was lounging in her garden with her attendants and a few Underworld deities who had come out for tea.

Nico tried to cut through the garden as quickly as possible without Melinoe or Styx spotting him and fawning about how much he'd grown or something idiotically adult. He didn't want confrontation, he wanted to see his father and ask him if he was willing to repair a Stygian Iron knife that Nico may or may have not dropped in one of the corrosive Underworld rivers.

Of course he was stopped.

"Nico, why don't you go in through the main door?" Persephone asked.

Nico froze.

"This way is quicker," he admitted. Persephone hated how he used her gardens as a shortcut or a hiding place from his father whenever he made a mess in the palace.

"Surely you can't be in a rush. Come sit with us," Persephone replied.

Usually Nico would be stunned that Persephone _actually _wanted to spend time with him, but right now she was just doing this to tick Nico off and waste his time. Of course, he couldn't refuse without revisiting the entire Dandelion incident.

He sat down on one of the iron chairs that an undead maid pulled back for him and thanked her with a nod. Surprisingly, there was another (living) kid sitting at the table, and he also looked completely uninterested in being there. He was older than Nico, much taller, he sat on Hecate's left instead of Persephone's, but he didn't look too happy to be there either.

"Nico, you'll be happy to know that you aren't the only half-blood in the Underworld anymore," Persephone said.

Nico wanted to ask her what may lead her to that conclusion (the one about her knowing the smallest thing about his happiness), but she just went on and introduced the other boy as Alabaster Torrington, which Nico thought was a stupid name but whatever. Supposedly he was staying with Hecate for a while because something had gone pear-shaped for him in the real world and Hecate had decided that she was over his vagabonding.

Maybe he should have felt a bit of sympathy since the same thing had happened to him when he was thirteen, but Nico didn't know this guy- which ticked him off a bit since Nico had made a habit to know everybody in the mythological worlds, just in case he ran into someone nasty, or someone went missing and Nico had to go make sure they weren't dead for a terrorized relative or friend or lover or whatever. He hadn't heard about him at Camp Half-Blood, _or _at Camp Jupiter. Lou Ellen had never mentioned a brother named Alabaster, but judging by the magic-looking pins on his leather jacket and the weapons on him, Alabaster had been around the mythological world for pretty long.

Nico nodded at him and sulked until Persephone told him that he could leave if he was going to be such a pain in the neck.

"Actually, maybe you should show Alabaster around the Underworld," Persephone said, smiling sweetly.

"I think that would be nice," Hecate chimed in. She was wearing her casual outfit- no random three merging images of a sorceress, no elaborate armour with moving parts that could pop off and slice at her enemies, no gowns with intricate symbols. Just a pitch black lacy summer dress with a silver belt dotted with gems, insects stuck in amber, bits of sea glass, and lucky charms- and of course her usual Medieval cloak. Her golden hair was wrapped around her hair in a milkmaid braid.

Nico shot her a look. Usually he was _so cool _with the magic goddess and they got along as well as he could with any god, even if she was his stepmother's best friend. _What was she doing? _

"Alabaster," Hecate said.

He got up, grudgingly.

Nico gave Persephone one final _why me? _look before she gave him a _remember how much I influence your father _look and got him to move.

"How squeamish are you?" Nico asked Alabaster.

"Nico," Persephone chided. "Why don't you show Alabaster the _nice _parts of the Underworld."

"I've seen blood," Alabaster said.

Nico just nodded and walked off.

Giving tours of the Underworld was pretty boring. 'To your left you have the souls who are spending eternity being tortured because they were horrible human beings, and to your right you have the guys who are partying their little heroic butts off'. Dead person here, dead person there, river of [some bummer like wailing or pain], monster, ghost, monster, ghost, random deity, dead person, dead person… The novelty had worn off for Nico long ago. He'd been desensitized from how terrifying this place was to other half-bloods.

Things only got remotely interesting when they were alone by the judgement pavilion that things got interesting, mostly because Alabaster tripped Nico and pinned him down against the ground.

"Hey, re-"

Nico was going to tell him to relax, but Alabaster yanked on the necklace that Nico was wearing. A camp necklace that Chiron had given Nico at the end of the summer, along with every bead he'd missed since he'd been claimed. Nico never usually wore his camp necklace, he didn't treasure it or connect to it as much as Percy or Annabeth did, but today he had put it on in an effort to butter Hades up and have his father fix his sword.

"You're from camp!" Alabaster said. He was straddling Nico's stomach and his knees were locked tight on either side of his chest. He held out a hand and with the mist, he made a knife. "You'll tell them where I'm hiding!"

Nico dislodged one hand and pressed his forearm against Alabaster's throat. His eyes wide with pain, he backed off after a second and Nico bounced to his feet.

"Back off," Nico said. "I don't know what kind of issues you have with camp or the world in general, but I'm not interested in getting involved in anything, and by anything, I mean _anything_. Put the knife away, and I won't."

Alabaster looked at him in shock and Nico stormed off, swearing to himself that he would _never _let Hecate and Persephone tag-team against him ever again.

* * *

_I'm not interested in getting involved in anything, and by anything, I mean _anything.

Alabaster could only think about what a shame that was as Nico di Angelo stormed away. Stormed away after weaseling out of Alabaster's usually flawless grip and giving him the kind of glare that people didn't usually _dare _to give children of magic.

Alabaster would gladly have started something.

And by something, he meant _something.__  
_

* * *

"It's hard to guess how that went," Hecate mused gazing thoughtfully at the enchanted mirror on which they'd kept tabs on their two rambunctious boys.

"It is," Persephone said. "I don't know about your Alabaster, but I know that Nico has… conflicting ways of expressing emotions."

"Alabaster's the same," Hecate nodded.

"They're _perfect _for each other," Persephone beamed, clapping her hands together. "And they both need someone to calm them down and center them anytime now."

"Definitely," Hecate said quietly. "I mean, how paranoid is Alabaster? How rational is Nico?"

"Please, did you see how blasé and isolated Nico was? And Alabaster seems confrontational and brave enough to cover that..."

The two Underworld goddesses nodded, looking at the mirror -which now showed only the pavilion and the usual lines of ghosts and zombies- and pondering on how well their plan was actually looking up to be...

"We'll keep working on it," Persephone nodded decisively, already planning out the flowers for the wedding. "Consider it an open file."

* * *

**Upcoming ship weeks**

**August**

**10 - 16 **- Free slash week (author's pick of a same-sex story)

**17 - 23 **- Free friendship week

**24 - 30 **- Chris and Clarisse

**31 - 06 **- Jason and Reyna

**September**

**07- 13 **- Jason and Piper

**14 -20 **- Frank and Hazel

**21 - 27 **- Calypso and Leo

**28 - October 4 **- Percy and Annabeth


End file.
